Sadayashi (George) Fujii, 76, of Garden Grove is a retired businessman. He was interned at Poston, Ariz. Fujii, born in Seattle, was sent by his parents to Japan at age 9 for his education, an experience that created a strong sense of Japanese nationalistic pride. That kibei (American-born but Japanese-educated) pride often clashed with Nisei (second-generation Japanese-American) beliefs. While other Japanese-Americans pushed loyalty to America, Fujii rode a cultural tightrope.

I read with fascination and sympathy Betty Cuniberti's article on the Japanese internment camps ("Internment: Personal Voices, Powerful Choices," Oct. 4). The mental and physical cruelties perpetrated on these citizens were not worthy of a great democracy. In some respects, they are reminiscent of some of the cruelties perpetrated by our enemies of that time. After all, these people came to our shores for freedom and were learning the principles of democracy. The article reminds me of my own past.

This letter is in reply to the three-page spread in the Feb. 16 issue of The Times concerning the internment and relocation of Japanese after Pearl Harbor. No one under the age of 60 can understand the tremendous dislike of the entire American population for the Japanese people whose envoys were in Washington declaring their wishes for peace on the weekend of Dec. 7, 1941, while their war planes were bombing Pearl Harbor and killing hundreds of our young men without a chance to defend themselves.

Thanks to Teresa Watanabe for her excellent story, "Churches Relive a Victory Over Hate" (Aug. 13), about the enduring friendship between the members of two churches in Hollywood, one a Japanese congregation, following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The career of Dr. James Yamazaki, the special speaker for the moving joint service, is every bit as incredible as the story of the friendship between these two congregations. I first met Yamazaki in 1951, when I came to Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles as an intern; he was on the staff.

Re "Graduating With Honor After 50 Years," Oct. 17: Nowhere is the $20,000 entitlement for "human suffering" mentioned. Every Nisei pictured in the (Roosevelt High School reunion) photo (probably) has accepted "for human suffering," $20,000 each, and tax free. So generous is our Uncle Sam, made so by an unearned guilt trip, that our Congress and media have supported the greatest swindle in U.S. history. Under the Japanese-American Student Relocation Program, 4,300 people of Japanese descent were assisted in entering colleges and universities, all of which accepted high school graduation credentials, whether from relocation centers or internment camps.

Siegmund Nissel, 86, a violinist who fled his native Germany as a child to escape Nazi persecution of Jews and later helped found the Amadeus String Quartet, died Wednesday at his home in London, his daughter Claire Nissel said. She didn't disclose a cause of death. Nissel, violinist Norbert Brainin and violist Peter Schildof escaped from the Nazis and formed a deep, enduring friendship when they were in an internment camp on the Isle of Man in Britain during World War II. The fourth was British cellist Martin Lovett.

Film director Alan Parker is no stranger to controversy. His 1978 "Midnight Express," based on a true story about an American drug smuggler's experiences in a Turkish prison, offended almost everyone in Turkey. His 1987 "Angel Heart" got caught up in a ratings controversy over a graphic, interracial love scene between Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet. And his 1988 "Mississippi Burning," loosely based on the Ku Klux Klan killings of three civil-rights workers in the South in the 1960s, created a firestorm of protestations that his depiction of heroic white FBI agents didn't square with the FBI's real role in that case.

Frank Hays, superintendent of Manzanar National Historic Site, walks carefully among sage and fallen leaves, near an area where Japanese American orphans were confined during World War II. He stops and reaches for something on the ground. "A marble," he says. He hands it to Alisa Lynch, his colleague with the National Park Service, who holds it in her palm. It is dull and chipped, warm from the sun.